James Patterson - I, Michael Bennett

“What do you know, Tara? Dumb luck happens to cops sometimes, too,” I said. “Have you contacted my pal Bill Bedford, the special agent in charge of the Perrine escape investigation, for his take on the latest development?”

“He’s number two on my call list,” Tara said. “The race goes to the swift, Mike. This was your case originally so I thought I’d give you a head start to get back in on it. You game?”

“See you at the prison,” I said, pulling myself up off the floor.

Tara was wrong.

It turned out the meeting with the Puentes brothers wasn’t actually at the Shawangunk prison, because Shawangunk is a state facility. Since the charges were federal, it turned out that the seventy-plus Newburgh gang arrestees were being housed in the federal lockup in Otisville.

Driving up to the second prison I’d visited during my summer vacation, I sighed. With all this running around in the country, I could write a fairy-tale romance novel for middle-aged cops, I thought. Call it The Prisons of Orange County.

I arrived at the white-brick bunker of the administration building first. An affable black female assistant warden showed me the conference room where the meeting was to take place. It was surprisingly unlike a prison-a windowless room with a carpet, a conference table, coffee service, and even a whiteboard.

I was pouring my second cup of joe when Tara came through the door with a mannequin from the men’s clothing store Jos. A. Bank. Actually, it was my tall, slim, nattily attired friend Bill Bedford, the FBI agent.

“Tara, Bill,” I said, turning, with a smile of pure innocence.

Bedford seemed to have some trouble preserving his unflappable demeanor.

“What the hell is he doing here?” he barked.

“Oh, did I forget to mention Detective Bennett, Bill?” Tara said. “He was part of the arrest procedures in Newburgh last night. He was the one who arrested Miguel Puentes. You know, the suspect we’re here to deal with?”

I nodded at Bill helpfully as I sat back down. What Tara failed to mention was that Miguel hadn’t spoken to me personally. But ol’ Bill didn’t need to know everything. What would be the fun in that?

“But why is he here?” the special agent in charge wanted to know.

“What do you mean, Bill? Not only is Mike already a part of the federal gang task force, he’s been an integral part of the Perrine case from the get-go. So of course I took the liberty of including him in this meeting.”

Bedford made a noise.

“I’m sorry, Bill. I didn’t catch that.”

“Yeah, uh-huh, whatever,” Bedford said, kicking out a chair and sitting. “Where are these Puentes people already?”

Tara had her video camera set up when the Puentes brothers came in a few minutes later. I waved to Miguel, who was now wearing prison coveralls over his boxer briefs. His larger brother looked like he’d just taken a huge bite of some bad meat. Their lawyer was a large, bald Dominican gentleman in a gaudy banker’s suit who looked like he could make a go at professional wrestling if the law thing didn’t pan out.

Everyone remained silent, sizing each other up as two corrections officers securely cuffed the Brothers McPuentes to a steel rail along the wall.

“You understand that my clients are putting themselves and their families in grave danger by speaking with you,” the lawyer started out.

“Bullshit,” Bedford said with over-the-top venom. “What I understand is that your clients here are looking at life in jail for murder and drug trafficking. Save the medal of valor application and cut to the goddamn chase, counselor.”

The lawyer opened his mouth for a moment, and then closed it, the overhead fluorescent lights gleaming off the brown wrecking ball of his head.

“I was told we were here to make a deal for my clients,” he said. “Maybe I heard wrong.”

“Exactly. We want immunity. Full immunity,” Miguel cut in.

“And witness protection,” said Ramon.

“Oh, is that all?” said ever-helpful Bill Bedford. “No problem. How about we toss in a flying pony that shits bars of gold?”

“Enough, okay? We get it,” Tara said, suddenly jumping in before Bedford could do any more damage. “You want to skate. That’s a very tall order. What do we get?”

“We know where Manuel Perrine is,” Ramon said. “I’m talking right now.”

“No,” said Miguel, eyeing his brother. “He doesn’t know shit. I do. I know where Perrine is.”

“How would you know anything about Perrine?” I said.

“We’ve been doing business with his people for quite some time, purchasing cocaine and heroin from their distributor in the Bronx. People from the Perrine cartel contacted me three weeks ago and asked me to lease a house for them in a secluded location where a helicopter could land without looking suspicious. I was also asked to supply a staff of cleaning people and a chef who could cook French cuisine.

“The chef is an old friend of mine. He confirmed to me that Perrine is at the location, that he arrived the night after the escape. I was able to contact my friend this morning, and he confirmed it again. Perrine’s still there as we speak.”

“There was an attractive, dark-haired woman with Perrine,” I said.

“Marietta?” Miguel said, looking at me. “Yes. She’s there as well.”

“Why the hell is he still hanging around?” Bedford said.

“Arrangements are being made to get them out of the country, back into Canada, where they had been living before Perrine’s arrest, but there’s some sort of problem,” Miguel said. “We need to move on this before my arrest is made public. Once that happens, he’ll send a kill team to wipe out me, my brother, and our family. That’s what he does.

“He told me many times that sweet death is the noble price every man should happily pay for failure. He thinks of dealing drugs as a religious calling and himself as a messiah figure. He’s incredibly insane. Please, you need to help us. You need to grab this sick bastard. It’s our only chance.”

“Okay, okay,” Tara said, standing. “We’ll confer out in the hall for a moment.”

“What do you think, Mike?” Tara said after the door closed. “This info sounds credible.”

“Extremely credible,” I said. “Especially the part about Perrine being incredibly insane.”

“I agree,” Bedford said, trying hard not to lick his chops. “These two are sharks, but Perrine is Moby Dick. We need to make the deal.”

“I will, Bill, on one condition,” Tara said.

“What’s that?” Bedford said.

“That Mike is brought back in on this for Perrine’s arrest and capture.”

Bedford glared at her and then at me, but behind his eyes, I could see the calculator in his brain being furiously punched.

“Okay, fine. I’ll have to talk to my boss, but I think we can work that out.”

“Okay, then,” Tara said, winking at me as she grabbed the doorknob. “Let’s go back in there and make a deal.”

Around 6:00 P.M. that summer evening, I was an hour and a half north of Newburgh in upstate Greene County, New York, standing on the shoulder of a two-lane country road.

As I glanced at the seemingly endless ribbon of blacktop curving upward through the gold-tinged pines, the free-spirited maverick in me felt like sticking out my thumb and lighting out for the territories. But then I suddenly remembered that I was a cop instead of Jack Kerouac, and I followed the FBI agent I was with past a freshly road-killed porcupine into the bucket of a tree-service cherry picker.

I held onto my borrowed yellow hard hat as the bucket hummed upward through oak leaves and pine needles. Halting just at treetop level, about seven stories up, I was greeted with 360 degrees of stark, breathtaking Catskill Mountains peaks shale ridges. Since there was no man-made structure to be seen, the experience was like going back in time.